We Built This City
The race is on to get to Veronica before she succumbs to zombies, poison gas, or both. Cast * Sam Yao * Cameo Wood * Kytan * The Builder * Veronica McShell * Sid * Nadia * Sigrid Hakkinen Plot Do What We Can Everyone prepares to enter Battenbury with rebreathers on. Cameo and Kytan run distraction while you and The Builder head for the clock tower with the explosives. Time To Move While the team on the ground continues to progress Sam and Nadia try to make sense of sentient zombies. Suddenly Veronica's on the radio, whispering her position. Still A Few Coming Kytan and Cameo continue to distract zoms, while Veronica reports the zombie that kidnapped her is actually trying to protect her. My Way Of Thinking The ground team find harrowing graffiti by survivors trapped by the military. Veronica sees you but can't get to you, and discovers her captor was a man named Sid. Time To Be A Hero Zoms are breaking through the door Sid has barricaded to protect Veronica. He is the one who's been taking the girls, thinking they're his daughter. Razed To The Ground A massive explosion takes out loads of zombies. Veronica wants to save Sid but The Builder shoots him. The Minister breaks into the transmission warning that the city is about to be bombed. All This Will Be Over As the group runs from the city the bombing starts behind you. The Minister is sure Veronica's research is the key to a cure and wants to help with work on Zombie Anomalies. Transcript groan SAM YAO: Alright. Everyone in position? STEVE SISSAY: I’m here with Runner Five, Sam. And the explosives. SAM YAO: Which you have on your person at all times. STEVE SISSAY: My motto’s always been, “Be Prepared”. SAM YAO: Boy Scout? STEVE SISSAY: That’s classified, love. SAM YAO: Hey, Janine, you and Steve here used to belong in the same Scout troop, sounds like. JANINE DE LUCA: His is less keen on Scout’s honor, I suspect. Runners Thirteen and Eleven, ready? KYTAN: I’m going to kick some zombie butt! For Yang, because that’s what he would have wanted. CAMEO WOOD: Yeah, for Yang. And then we’ll pick up his body. STEVE SISSAY: Got a fix yet, Spens? AMELIA SPENS: Veronica’s on the move inside the clock tower. JANINE DE LUCA: The more she moves, the more of the poisoned air she breaths. She has half an hour before she starts to asphyxiate. STEVE SISSAY: Time to move out. Everyone clear on the plan? CAMEO WOOD: We distract some zombies. KYTAN: And then I do some ninja hwaa! STEVE SISSAY: Yeah, not too much ninja hwaa, okay? We want them chasing you while I secure an exit route and Five gets to that clock tower. Alright? CAMEO WOOD: Let’s do it! SAM YAO: Better get that gate open, Five. opens CAMEO WOOD: Rebreathers on, everyone. STEVE SISSAY: Ready? Into the city. We’ll head up to this point together across the roofs, and then split up. SAM YAO: Yeah, those roofs? They do have some zombies on them. CAMEO WOOD: We’ll do what we can. Let’s go. KYTAN: Get it off! Get off me, you asshole! Stab! Chop! CAMEO WOOD: Kytan, Five, down! zombies splatter STEVE SISSAY: Good work, Cameo. We owe you one. CAMEO WOOD: Runner Thirteen. STEVE SISSAY: Of course. I’m sorry, Runner Thirteen. CAMEO WOOD: I’ve never seen anything like that out there. The half-burned zombies are still moving. Did you see that one that looked like it had melted into the wall? Runner designation helps me focus. STEVE SISSAY: No need to explain. Sam, sitrep? SAM YAO: Uh, yeah. You’re about a quarter of the way to the clock tower. Amelia, how’s Veronica? AMELIA SPENS: Looks like she’s crouching down. Hard to tell from this angle. She might be hiding. SAM YAO: From the zombie that kidnapped her, probably. Any word on how that’s even possible? JANINE DE LUCA: We’ve seen odd behavior in zombies before. Remember that zombie shepherdess you encountered? She was part of Van Ark’s original trial, and retained some human intelligence even once infected with the zombie virus. NADIA AL HANAKI: No, Janine. We haven’t had any luck finding zombie anomolies like that. SAM YAO: Hit the jackpot this time. The terrifying, horribly, asphyxiating jackpot. Five? Your team needs to be ready to move in forty-five seconds. Go down to ground level, across the square, and back up onto the roof. NADIA AL HANAKI :Wait! Wait, I’m picking something up. Guys, guys, turn you receivers to band fourteen. I’ll keep scanning. static VERONICA MCSHELL: The helicopter’s circling the city. I’m in the top floor of the civic building. A round tower with a clock on top. The zombie put me here. I’m in an office. I’ve cobbled together a radio. Please, come quickly. coughs The zombie that caught me isn’t trying to hurt me, but I can’t breath properly. coughs And I think that zombie’s trying to talk. SAM YAO: That’s time. Move, guys, now! CAMEO WOOD: Thar she blows. Battenbury clock tower. What’s left of it. KYTAN: Yeah, yeah. Cool. How did those zombies get melted into the walls? JANINE DE LUCA: They used some flesh-eating bacteria as part of the mix. CAMEO WOOD: Oh! They became zombified while their flesh was dissolving, at which point it stopped melting, but was still stuck to the stone. So they’re not really melted into the walls, it just looks that way? That’s a tiny bit comforting. SAM YAO: Yeah, guys, science corner later? Five, you’re on your own from here. You need to get across those roofs to the tower. CAMEO WOOD: Kytan, we’ll make some noise. We’ll keep them off your back, Five. KYTAN: If the zombies melt off the buildings, I’ll jump sideways, and use my baton like this – sound effects SAM YAO: Are you getting all that, Veronica? VERONICA MCSHELL: coughs Yes. The zombie that carried me here is trying to protect me. It’s fighting the other zombies. I think this is a more advanced form of the habitual behavior we’ve seen in some other zombies. Climbing, opening doors. coughs CAMEO WOOD: Veronica, don’t try to talk. Shallow breaths. We’re coming for you. STEVE SISSAY: Here. Thirteen, catch. jingles Just a small bag of grenades. Extremely useful if you want to cause chaos in that maddened horde of poisonous humanity without getting too hands on. KYTAN: Nice! Here, after us, deadheads! SAM YAO: Yeah, Five? There are still a few coming. You need to get moving. explosion KYTAN: Wow! Amazing shot! That zombie just went KABOOM! STEVE SISSAY: Make sure you keep your mouth closed. Saw an operative once get zombie grenade spatter in her mouth. Turned like that. SAM YAO: Right. Good knowledge. Five, you’re making good time. Just need to circle around to the left to avoid that burned bit. Uh, there are a lot of burned bits. CAMEO WOOD: There’s some pretty horrible graffiti down here. KYTAN: “Tell them we lived here for sixteen days after the city was sealed.” Why didn’t they try and escape? CAMEO WOOD: Maybe they did. I heard the military surrounded this place and shot anyone who tried to climb the wall. They thought they could contain the outbreak that way. KTYAN: There’s another one. “Margaret Parambath lived for twenty-five days. Remember her.” Long list of names over there. Some of those names have got to be some of the zoms now. CAMEO WOOD: Yeah, names. They’re people once you’ve got their name. How are you doing, Runner Eleven? KYTAN: I am A-okay, Runner Thirteen! Want to play tag with some more zoms? VERONICA MCSHELL: coughs Runner Five, I can see you out the window. I can’t get it open. STEVE SISSAY: Five’s coming for you, love. Hold on. It’s going to be fine. VERONICA MCSHELL: I’ve been looking around. There are pictures of a family. In one, a man – he looks like the zombie who caught me. The name on the desk is Sid. He was a council buildings inspector. In some of the pictures, he’s got his arm around a teenage girl. I think it’s his daughter. static SAM YAO: Veronica, are you okay? VERONICA MCSHELL: Yes. I – the zombies outside are trying to break down the door. I don’t know if Sid will be able to hold them for long. SAM YAO: Time to get climbing, Five. If you just cross that roof, there are steps up toward the tower. CAMEO WOOD: You’ve got shamblers heading your way. We’ll draw them off. With explosions. STEVE SISSAY: Knew you’d come around to my way of thinking. explosion STEVE SISSAY: That’ll do. SAM YAO: You are effective at that, I have to say. STEVE SISSAY: Hey, you were the one who managed to spot the zombie hairdresser, still holding her scissors! SAM YAO: Yeah, there have been a few of those zombies with a tiny little bit of brain left here. Like, more than usual. VERONICA MCSHELL: It’s fascinating. There may be some genetic or environmental factor. SAM YAO: Five’s on the way, Veronica. Hold on. You’re going well, Five. Nearly at the tower. Then you should be able to climb up the decorative brickwork around the outside. Forms quite a neat staircase. A neat one foot wide staircase with no handrail. Be careful. VERONICA MCSHELL: Sid is still fighting the other zoms. They’ve smashed the door. CAMEO WOOD: How are you not dead? VERONICA MCSHELL: Oh, Sid barricaded the door with filing cabinets. I think we’ll be okay for another ten minutes or so. growl Maybe six minutes! SAM YAO: Five will be there. KYTAN: And we’ll clear an exit path. Bam! STEVE SISSAY: I have this special thing I like to do at times like this. I call it, “trap all the zombies in one place and make that place go boom.” SAM YAO: You really really do love explosions, don’t you? VERONICA MCSHELL: I think Sid keeps trying to say something. SAM YAO: Say something? Oh, like that zombie shepherdess did? VERONICA MCSHELL: Listen! SID: Save you! VERONICA MCSHELL: I think I know what happened here. He thinks I’m his daughter. He keeps trying to save her. Bring her here, keep her safe. SAM YAO: But every time he does… JANINE DE LUCA: The girl dies from the poisoned air. VERONICA MCSHELL: There’s a picture here of Sid and his daughter at the same beach where he caught me. I think he takes the bodies back there when he finds another girl. CAMEO WOOD: He starts again? That’s disturbing. KYTAN: That’s disgusting. VERONICA MCSHELL: It’s a fascinating biological specimen! The anomaly I’ve wanted! beeps STEVE SISSAY: That’s the last charge set. Five, time for you to be my hero. explosion SAM YAO: Five, you okay? Yeah, Steve, that was a great idea. That building was zombie central. Must have got a quarter of the zoms in the city with that one blast. Although uh, yeah, that does leave quite a lot left. Right. Five, you’re at the window. Now - shatters Veronica, come out onto the ledge. Five’s here to rescue you. VERONICA MCSHELL: I can’t leave Sid. CAMEO WOOD: Put on the rebreather, Veronica. Five’s brought one for you. VERONICA MCSHELL: Sid! The zombie. Have to get him. Brain tissue is vital. SID: Save you! Must save you! VERONICA MCSHELL: Crying zombie! Not anyone’s insane ramblings. Real! If we want to find that cure, we have to save him. KYTAN: You can’t rescue a zombie. CAMEO WOOD: Never mind a serial killer zombie. VERONICA MCSHELL: He didn’t know what he was doing. He can’t be a murderer if he thought he was saving those girls. JANINE DE LUCA: It’s a not a “he”, it’s an “it”. SAM YAO: Uh, yeah, is this a moral and/or identity dilemma we can maybe sort out when you’re back in Abel? You need to take Five’s hand and get out of there. That exit route won’t stay clear forever. gunshots Who’s shooting? VERONICA MCSHELL: No! Sid! Someone shot Sid! STEVE SISSAY: That solved your moral dilemma VERONICA MCSHELL: What the hell do you think you’re doing? That zombie’s brain was something I’ve never seen before. It could hold the answer to curing the entire zombie plague. STEVE SISSAY: Calm down, mate. I had my orders. VERONICA MCSHELL: Orders? Whose orders? SIGRID HAKKINEN: In fact, those were not my orders, Builder. You have overstepped your bounds again. VERONICA MCSHELL: And who are you? SAM YAO: Yeah! And how did you just break into my transmission? STEVE SISSAY: Multiple band repeaters stations. Easy, if you know the frequencies. SAM YAO: Alright. But who are you? SIGRID HAKKINEN: I’m the Minister, Sigrid Hakkinen. The Minister for Recovery. All of you, get out of there. We’re bombing the city in five minutes, razing it to the ground. All of you Abel runners, move! explosions VERONICA MCSHELL: I can’t believe you did that. There was information in that office. We might have found out why Sid was that way. Where he’d been, what he’d done, even what he ate and drank. SIGRID HAKKINEN: I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t necessary. But I’m impressed, Veronica McShell, by your determination, and your research. VERONICA MCSHELL: Um, okay? SIGRID HAKKINEN: That’s why I sent my top man to get you out. SAM YAO: Five did that, actually. STEVE SISSAY: Reporting back now, Minister. SIGRID HAKKINEN: Yes. Full debrief in an hour, please. I can’t say I’m impressed with your taking it into your head to shoot that research zombie. STEVE SISSAY: Someone’s got to take the hard choices in the field. She wasn’t going to leave without it, and she’s number one mission priority. SIGRID HAKKINEN: Yes, I suppose I had made that clear. Veronica, I’d hoped we could meet in person, but we have things to discuss. We want to help with your work. Resources, equipment, the best scientists we can find. I hoped we might save that zombie in Battenbury, but rest assured, we have already trapped three semi-sentient zombies. We have them in sterile crates, ready to ship to you in Abel Township’s labs. VERONICA MCSHELL: Oh. Right. I suppose that’s more safe than a poisoned town. SAM YAO: Wait. Janine, who’s this now? And do we need to listen to her? JANINE DE LUCA: Minister for Recovery. She’s – I suppose she’s as near to the Commander in Chief as any of us has anymore. I believe she was the senior civil servant at the Department of Defense before the outbreak, and she’s held that place together since then. Impressive, especially given what happened in most of the emergency bunkers. SIGRID HAKKINEN: Since the incident last year, and your exemplary report, De Luca - JANINE DE LUCA: Oh, thank you. SIGRID HAKKINEN: We at the Ministry were as vulnerable to that as anyone. Even some of King Jamie’s bodyguards were mind-controlled. We’ve undertaken a full internal audit. We’ve discovered some disturbing facts. One, Moonchild certainly did receive orders to blow up your helicopter, Runner Five. The orders came from someone within the provisional government. SAM YAO: What the - ? SIGRID HAKKINEN: Two, we have evidence that members of Netrophil, a pre-apocalypse fundamentalist group, have infiltrated the government and are conspiring to kill off the remnant of humanity. We intend to arrange free and fair elections, but we can’t possibly do that until the Netrophil cancer is excised. SAM YAO: I thought Netrophil were just loonies. I mean, we had this bloke Rajit here for a while before he moved on. laughs Alright, he wrote a terrible novel, but still! SIGRID HAKKINEN: Dangerous loonies. They believe that now the world is ended, they ought to be the master race. SAM YAO: Oh. Right. Always a good sign. SIGRID HAKKINEN: Three. Veronica, your research into the zombie virus has been the most extensive we have been able to discover anywhere in the world. VERONICA MCSHELL: Oh, that’s… disappointing. SIGRID HAKKINEN: The zombie virus started here in Britain. Patient zero was here. And it is here in Britain, I feel convinced, that we will end this thing at last. We can and must find the cure. And you will be the one to do it, Veronica. SAM YAO: No pressure. SIGRID HAKKINEN: I believe in fostering the talent that exists. The role of government is to maintain and nurture the best of us. Britain could be the country that brings the cure to the world. I want to be a part of that. SAM YAO: Yeah, and these elections have nothing to do with that? SIGRID HAKKINEN: We must all play our part. Abel Township has played a larger part than most. Your places in history are already secure. Can you blame me for wanting to follow the brightest star? There are, as I see it, two prongs to this attack. One is your scientific research into anomalous zombies, Veronica, with which we will afford you every aid. The second is some historical research. The papers Moonchild directed you to in the Natural History Museum relate to a zombie outbreak during the Viking era. We have discovered evidence that the Edda of the Wakened Warriors – the saga of the British Vikings – was censored, that there is a more complete version somewhere. VERONICA MCSHELL: Where? SIGRID HAKKINEN: That is what we do not know. All Moonchild’s known associates say that it was Runner Five whom she trusted, and of course, she had you forget it all once you were no longer under her control. A pity. Still, she’s given us a start. We’ll keep looking. We want to support you in any way we can, Veronica. Don’t decide now. If you want to talk, I’ll be here. STEVE SISSAY: And that’s my cue to leave. Doesn’t do to keep the lady waiting. SAM YAO: Ah, well, it’s been fun working with you, in a way. STEVE SISSAY: I hope we do it again soon. CAMEO WOOD: You okay, Veronica? There’s an old shopping trolley over there. Want me to wheel you home? VERONICA MCSHELL: I think I can walk, if we take it slowly. KYTAN: Slowly’s no fun! We can wheel you super fast! Hey, did you get a weird feeling about those guys from the Ministry? CAMEO WOOD: Uh, what, that they’re sketchy? Yeah! Still, you should go for it, Ronnie. If they’ve got intel we can use, can’t afford not to. VERONICA MCSHELL: Aren’t they our government? CAMEO WOOD: Government’s just another faction these days. And if they can help us cure the whole zombie plague… JANINE DE LUCA: Yes. For everyone. And for Doctor Cohen, and for everyone. If we can find a cure, all this will be over. Codex Artefact Photograph Veronica gave this to you. She took it from the office. Category:Mission Category:Season Four